A note - Roon heat problems in Windows NUC devices

Roon Software Discussion
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I started having terrible heat problems on my home server running Roon (with whatever gets installed with the generic Roon installer) - an i5 NUC from two generations back, lots of RAM but no internal drives other than the M2 with the OS and the Roon assets, nothing else running on the NUC other than from time to time I’d fire up DBPoweramp to rip a CD, or a browser to download file purchases.

The problems were pretty wildly diverse. Sometimes a complete stop and crash, and on restart, a message from Windows saying the crash was heat related. Frequently had unreliability streaming - only two of us here and we were never streaming to more than one zone, but we’d get drop outs, some that would last long enough that Roon would pause itself. I came here looking for answers, and have seen a lot of posts last two years about people using Roon NUC who were having crazy fan problems (full speed for hours). My NUC was in a fanless enclosure - imagine something six times the size of a NUC that’s all heat sink fins. I was getting crashes where others were having their NUC with raging fans that wouldn’t stop.

I started checking processes on my NUC. And very often the heat problem would start in the wee hours of the morning, which I didn’t notice until trying to listen while having coffee at 6am. Every time I had a heat crash, I’d find that Roon was doing something that ate up tons of RAM and beat daylights out of storage and caused heat that crashed the system.

Stop. This was after three years of ZERO heat problems. Looking at system logs the system was edge of comatose for three years, and then… last two years there’d be random events where Roon was suddenly in a panic furiously working away, which (god bless or god damn Windows, your choice) would also include Windows furiously doing all kinds of stuff.

I know heat damage in computers is cumulative so I upgraded to a new NUC. And when I did that I discovered an ungodly number of Windows services and helpers and monitors and optimizers that weren’t there a couple years ago. (I don’t have a computer from four years ago in its four year ago state… but back when I built and stood up that last server, it took me about a half hour to shut off all the crazy stuff.) It took me almost three hours to hunt down and kill Windows processes that added no value… which led me to check my fine art photography archive and print server, which is also Windows, and although I’d spent a good hour killing zero value processes on that machine two years ago when I built it… I found almost another hour of stuff to kill.

My point in this post is… Roon, a lot of your users will be running Windows. Not necessarily willingly. I set out to have my new build be Linux, but the lack of drivers for the new NUC components defeated me and I ended up using Windows. (There’s a whole 'nother post on this… two days I spent on Linux on the newest NUC… And for reference, I oversee a federal IT organization with a couple thousand servers, about half Windows, so I’m not clueless on this.)

It would be amazing if you had someone who made their living by tracking all the stuff in the current builds of Windows Home and Pro that runs for AI or advice or optimization or whatever, but that adds no value to a Roon server… and maintained a guide for users on how to shut down everything that doesn’t make Roon better. That’s probably a full time ongoing job. MSFT keeps adding stuff, because my clean and silent servers suddenly became chaotic and noisy with the ongoing Windows updates.

All those people running Roon on NUC with Windows… Windows’ ongoing upgrades and new feature additions were invisible to them (us), and eventually I believe that Roon’s optimization features got into death-matches with Windows’ optimization features. And then… we all started having heat problems ranging from fans that sounded like F35 engines to my own fanless device becoming too hot to touch.

IMO, Windows was making Roon look bad. You need to figure out some way to protect yourself from this, and then help us protect ourselves.

Thanks. Love Roon, couldn’t live without it (music is my drug of choice) so trust me on this… I’m not complaining, I’m making suggestions on how we could both be better off.

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Hello @Edward_Nazarko,

Thank you for reaching out to Roon Support and for providing valuable feedback.

While we would have been happy to provide a custom Windows image, this is restricted under the terms of the Microsoft EULA agreement.

However, we will consider creating a Knowledge Base article that outlines safe methods to disable unnecessary services on an already installed Windows Server, which may help improve performance and reduce overhead.

In the meantime, could you kindly confirm whether you’ve tried installing the Windows LTSC version? It is more lightweight and optimized for stability and long-term use, and might suit your needs better.

Kind regards,
Vadim

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I purchased a’new to me’ Intel i5 Nuc which had Windows 11 installed.
I wiped the Windows install from the drive then installed Roon Rock.
Its a fanless version and runs very well with no heat issues.

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This topic was automatically closed 10 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

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Unfortunately the original post and replies closed because no response… but I had carpal tunnel surgery on my right hand so trying to write anything longer than “yes” or “no” just wasn’t going to happen. I have both my hands now (I’ve had both hands done, and yes, it worked wonderfully…) so a bit more to share.

@Vadim from Roon asked about whether I’d tried Windows LTSC. Nope. And Windows has it pretty much locked down from people like me wanting to do onesie home installs - “contact your Windows rep for licensing.” I managed IT ops and development for a federal agency (until recently when I got forked) and we used Windows LTSC for some appliance-like things that I cannot talk about, for awhile, but ended up changing over to using Linux. We had stability issues that we never could explain, and we needed our devices running, not showing a BSD or frozen. No blame put on MSFT for that, what we were doing was pretty edgy compared to Roon. I think it would be interesting for Roon to perhaps sponsor a trial - a dozen or so people trying it on NUC devices - and see how it goes.

Roon Rock really wasn’t an option for me because I do still rip CDs, occasionally write them, get USB drives from friends with their upcoming album, download music purchased, etc, and it seemed like Rock would accommodate things other than just being the music master. (If it can do MORE than that, you should make that clear.) I guess I’m advocating for something not as stripped to purpose as Rock, but that can keep me safe from MSFT’s continually modding my computer because they think they know my business better than I do.

Since I wrote that last post that started the string, where I’d spent a long time following down every menu on Windows 11 Pro to turn stuff off… MSFT has added three NEW things that started popping up or suggesting that I had to turn off.

Feel free to send me a link to your “guide to silencing the Windows busybody.” I’d be happy to comment, even stand up a dummy NUC (I have an older one that’s idle right now) to see if I can follow, and if I have any suggestions. I’ve got a bit of time on my hands at the present…

And to be clear: I’m a Roon fan. The app has occasionally destroyed hours of time I was going to spend productively but instead spent it running down rabbit hole after rabbit hole following musicians’ careers and guest appearances, comparing versions of the Shostakovich Violin Concerto #1, and more things only possible with Roon. It sparks enough joy that it makes the occasional tech support issue worthwhile.

Link to original here just in case.

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Repened and topics merged to keep all the history together.

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Hey @Edward_Nazarko,

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts!

We can definitely help bring more attention to your concerns. However, the Support category is designed for troubleshooting and tends to have a high volume of posts, and has topic timers, which can cause suggestions to get lost over time.​

To ensure your feedback gets the visibility it deserves, we recommend moving this discussion to either:

  • Feature Suggestions : This section allows users to vote on ideas, providing our Product team with insight into what’s most important to the community.
  • Roon Software Discussion: A more general discussion area where your post will remain open and accessible to a wider audience for ongoing conversation.​

Let us know which option you prefer, and we’ll assist in relocating your post accordingly. :+1:

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no concerns, just offering my thoughts to others struggling with Roon, and to Roon app. So relocate it where you want.

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